MOFA on Taiwan’s status
In a commentary by James Wang (王景弘) that appeared in the Taipei Times, the legal status of the Cairo Declaration was called into question (“Distortions about Cairo Declaration aid China,” Feb. 5, page 8). To prevent similar arguments from causing confusion in the international community over Taiwan’s status, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) would like to provide the following clarification and ensure an accurate understanding of the facts.
I. The historical significance of the Cairo Declaration: At a summit held in Cairo on Nov. 23, 1943, the leaders of the Republic of China (ROC), the UK and the US agreed that the territories Japan had stolen from China, including Manchuria, Formosa (Taiwan) and the Pescadores (Penghu), should be restored to the Republic of China. The terms of the agreement were published on Dec. 1 that same year in a joint communique that became widely known as the Cairo Declaration.
In July 1945, the ROC, the UK, the US and the then-Soviet Union issued the Potsdam Proclamation, stipulating that the terms of the Cairo Declaration were to be carried out. Moreover, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, signed on Sept. 2 that year, clearly states Japan’s acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation and, by extension, the Cairo Declaration.
II. The legal status of the Cairo Declaration: The Cairo Declaration stands as a firm commitment by the leaders of the UK, the US and the ROC over the disposition of Japanese territories after World War II, following which the ROC government duly sent troops to Taiwan in 1945 to accept the Japanese surrender and recover the land.
Furthermore, its provisions were again accepted by Japan in the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. Taiwan and Penghu were formally returned to the Republic of China in accordance with the Treaty of Peace between the ROC and Japan of 1952.
Although the declaration is not a “treaty” or an “agreement” in name, it was concluded in the 1978 Aegean Sea Continental Shelf case put before the International Court of Justice that a joint communique could be considered an international agreement. That the Cairo Declaration is an international agreement is therefore beyond doubt.
III. The concrete implementation of the terms of the Cairo Declaration reflects the desire of the countries involved to restore Taiwan and Penghu to the Republic of China: If the UK and the US did not believe that the Cairo Declaration was a legally binding pledge to the ROC, why did they not then take over Taiwan at the time of the Japanese surrender? Meanwhile, not a single country opposed the restoration of ROC nationality to the residents of Taiwan, and the official US position was recorded as being that it agreed to the retrocession of Taiwan and Penghu to the ROC.
Then-US president Harry Truman, for instance, stated in a press conference on Jan. 5, 1950, that “Formosa was surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek [蔣介石], and for the past four years the United States and other allied powers have accepted the exercise of Chinese [ROC] authority over the island.” This statement clearly reflects the US government’s position at the time.
IV. Taiwan’s legal status has been confirmed: Although certain government officials in the US, the UK and elsewhere argued in the 1950s that Taiwan’s status had yet to be decided, this position was borne out of practical politics and, since the 1970s, has failed to gain traction among governments around the world.
In The Creation of States in International Law by James Crawford, a renowned UK academic of international law who happens to have an in-depth knowledge of cross-strait affairs, Taiwan’s status is given as being Chinese territory (the Republic of China, as far as we are concerned).
Clearly, the notion that Taiwan is subject to a condominium or that its title is undetermined holds no water.
Perry Pei-hwang Shen
Director-general,
Department of Treaty and Legal Affairs,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
On May 13, the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to Article 6 of the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of nuclear reactors from 40 to 60 years, thereby providing a legal basis for the extension or reactivation of nuclear power plants. On May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators used their numerical advantage to pass the TPP caucus’ proposal for a public referendum that would determine whether the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant should resume operations, provided it is deemed safe by the authorities. The Central Election Commission (CEC) has
When China passed its “Anti-Secession” Law in 2005, much of the democratic world saw it as yet another sign of Beijing’s authoritarianism, its contempt for international law and its aggressive posture toward Taiwan. Rightly so — on the surface. However, this move, often dismissed as a uniquely Chinese form of legal intimidation, echoes a legal and historical precedent rooted not in authoritarian tradition, but in US constitutional history. The Chinese “Anti-Secession” Law, a domestic statute threatening the use of force should Taiwan formally declare independence, is widely interpreted as an emblem of the Chinese Communist Party’s disregard for international norms. Critics
RSS